Synergy News

[p]Join us for Synergy's annual Rebel Rush event where we play through the entire Half-Life 2 campaign and its episodes with a significantly increased player limit.[/p][p][/p][p]The Half-Life Discord will once again be hosting this event. Many performance optimizations have been applied to Synergy since last year's event so we'll be doubling the player limit from 127 to 255![/p][p][/p][p]Synergy's one elusive achievement will be granted after a few minutes of play after the first chapter.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]How to participate[/h2][p]First, RSVP if you have Discord so we know how many rebels to expect![/p][p]Discord RSVP[/p][p][/p][p]On the day of the event, switch to Synergy's [c]rebelrush[/c] Steam branch to participate. It will be made publicly available shortly before the event starts.[/p][p][c]Right click Synergy in Steam -> Properties -> Betas and switch to the 'rebelrush' branch[/c][/p][p][/p][p]After launching the [c]rebelrush[/c] version of Synergy, click the [c]Join Rebel Rush 2025 Server[/c] button on the main menu.[/p][p][/p][p]Since we're pushing the Source Engine to its limits, do expect a few moments of lag and perhaps a crash or two! We've done our best to minimize these inconveniences but there's always more work to do. We'll be hosting the server on a 9950x3D to give it every performance advantage possible.[/p][h3][/h3]

• [p]The event typically lasts about 10 hours.[/p]
• [p]The server will likely fill up fast but there will be many opportunities to catch a spot throughout the day.[/p]
• [p]Although the player limit will be set to 255 (including reserved slots), we may artificially lower it in certain sections if performance limitations demand it. We will gradually increase it when we have headroom.[/p]
• [p]You can switch to a free-cam spectator mode via [c]jointeam 1[/c] in the console (space bar toggles modes).[/p]
• [p]Keep an eye on the Half-Life Discord Server Announcements page for any moment-to-moment updates during the event.[/p]

[p][/p][p]If you have any questions, feel free to drop by the Half-Life Discord Chat or Synergy Discord Chat. Big thanks to IntriguingTiles and BobWombat for helping make this event possible![/p][p][/p][p]This is a BYOC event (bring your own crowbar). We hope to see you there![/p][p][/p][p][/p]

I find city builders to be quite a stressful genre, mostly because I get freaked out as soon as my virtual bank account starts dipping into the red. Every now and then, though, one comes along that looks like it might actually be a calming time, and Synergy looks like it could fill that gap. It's been out in early access for almost a year now, but developer Leikir Studio announced today that Synergy will be leaving early access and entering 1.0 in just two weeks time on April 16th.

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• d2_coast_08: Fixed return level change not working.
  
• ep2_outland_03: Fixed vortigaunt not getting on the elevator near the end of the level.
  
• ep1_citadel_01: Fixed missing vortex particle effect on bridge puzzle.
  
• Increased voice chat quality by switching to the Steam Voice codec by default.
  • Changed sv_voicecodec default from vaudio_celt to steam and increased buffer sizes.
• Fixed annoying combine turret alarm sound getting stuck on in a loop sometimes.
  
• Fixed .lmp files not applying to maps for patched entity data. Mainly applies to ep1 and ep2.
  
• Fixed net_graph sometimes not rendering large packets.
  
• Fixed prop_combine_ball consuming a lot of network bandwidth on citadel maps.
  
• Fixed Strider and Antlion Worker gibs in ep2 not simulating correctly.
  
• Other players now will fade when too close the camera. cl_player_fadedist_*

Issue Tracker Discord

[h2]General Updates[/h2]

• Fixed player ragdolls not rendering.
  
• Fixed vote menu map list being empty (backported to 24.12.1)
  
• Fixed crash on player spawn on Linux servers (backported to 24.12.1)
  
• Fixed "Failed to prepare map" error dialog on custom maps downloaded from server.
  
• showtriggers_toggle can now only be ran from the server.
  
• d2_coast_10: Removed black screen fade when someone falls into the water.
  
• Updated all Half-Life 2 EDT files to be more robust in the face of future Half-Life 2 map updates (Thanks Balim)
  

[h2]Steam Networking: Phase II[/h2]
[h3]Game Client[/h3]
The Synergy game client will now connect to all internet servers using the Steam Datagram Relay (SDR) by default.

This will:

• Keep your IP address hidden from servers you connect to.
  
• Encrypt all server network traffic (incoming and outgoing).
  
• Possibly lower ping times.
  

Connecting to a server via a LAN IP address will remain unchanged. It will always connect via local IP directly and bypass the SDR as it would otherwise increase ping times by going over the internet instead of staying within the LAN. However, connecting to a server on the LAN via a SteamID (e.g. connect ) will use the SDR.

If you wish to instead connect to servers with your IP address (how it worked before) then disable this ConVar:

cl_sdr_prefer 0

cl_sdr_prefer 0 will not work when trying to connect to a Dedicated Server using an anonymized IP address (see below) or when connecting via a SteamID; the SDR will still be used in those cases.

[h3]Dedicated Servers[/h3]
Synergy Dedicated Servers will now use anonymized IP addresses by default.

This will:

• Keep the server's public IP address private.
  
• Remove the requirement to port forward the server to display in the Server Browser.
  

If you prefer to continue displaying your server's real IP address in the server browser then add the following startup option to keep previous behavior:

-nofakeip

Clients will still attempt to connect via the SDR by default even with -nofakeip. If the server has -nofakeip and the client has cl_sdr_prefer disabled, the connection will not use the SDR - as it worked by default before this update.

Due to a possible Steam bug, servers using an anonymized IP address will not show up in the Steam Client's Server Browser, but it will show up in Synergy's in-game server browser. -nofakeip can be used to workaround this.

[h3]Listen Servers[/h3]
Listen servers are unchanged and will work as they did in the previous update (i.e. connect ). UI updates are still in progress to make playing with Steam friends easier.

Happy New Years!

Issue Tracker Discord

• Added backend support for Steam Networking. Frontend TBD.
  
• Fixed additional instances of Anti-virus false positives with synergy.exe and srcds.exe
  
• Updated executable icons on Windows.
  
• Linux DS: Fixed NPC sounds not playing.
  

[h2]Steam Networking (beta) [/h2]
This update includes backend netcode support for Steam Networking. This means you can play Synergy with your friends without the hoster needing to port forward their listen client or dedicated server. UI changes to help facilitate this are currently in progress.

[h3]How can I use it now?[/h3]
Whoever will be hosting the server simply needs to load into a map and provide their SteamID64 to their friends. Type status in the console while loaded into a map to get your SteamID64.

This will be one of the lines printed:

steamid : [A;1;123456789:03210] (01234567890123456)

This is your SteamID. The SteamID64 is the one in parentheses: (01234567890123456). Send this to friends who would be connecting to your server.

To connect to a friend's server, type the following into the console given your friend's SteamID64:

connect 01234567890123456

This works with dedicated servers as well. When a dedicated server loads a map, it will also provide a game server SteamID64 via the status command. However the game client's Server Browser does not support listing servers via SteamID yet.

Issue Tracker Discord